Ronan Doherty took a hattrick of race victories in Round 5 of the Motorsport.ie Formula Vee Championship on Tuesday night at Donington Park.
Doherty once again proved he is the man to beat in Formula Vee’s, taking the championship lead after a dominant display. Coming into the evening, Doherty was the favourite to beat. Dylan McClements held the championship lead, so mixed with the absence of Jordan Kelly, a straight shootout between the cousins was in store. First blood went to Doherty, as he took pole position. Dylan McClements would start second and Thor Tulloh started third. The top three in the championship all started in the top three places, and after a quick trip for some popcorn, we went racing.
It was a disasterous start for Dylan McClements however as himself, older brother Sean McClements and Thor Tulloh would come into contact at turn one. Dylan would be spared the worst punishment, as he got away relatively damage free and in seventh place. The same could not be said for Sean and Thor. They ended up right at the back. For the rest of the race, we would be treated to a battle between five cars for the race win. Doherty would have to fend off Rory O’Shea, Peter McCann, Robbie Callaghan and Conor Melia in order to cross the chequer first.
The second race of the evening, Heat 2, would see Doherty challenged again but this time by only one driver, Conor Melia. Doherty and Melia would build up well over a nine second gap to third place within the 15 minute race. Melia would launch a late attack, and have the race lead starting the final lap. Doherty however was able to pull off a beautiful ‘around the outside’ overtake into ‘McLean’s’ and take back first place, which he would not surrender. When asked about his plan for the overtake, Doherty told GantryTV that “when I went side by side with him [Melia] before, he did back out. I knew if I got onto the back straight I was pretty good into the proceeding corners.”
Changing your racing style based on who you are racing against is a fantastic tactic we see often by Ronan Doherty. It makes it very hard for the opposition to predict what he is going to do. The tactic would need to return pretty much immediately, as in Heat 3 he would have a new but familiar opponent : Dylan McClements.
Doherty and McClements would be followed by a group of almost ten cars at times, but it was always going to be the championship protagonists fighting for the win on the last lap. Unlike Heat 2’s battle, Doherty led almost the full lap, but McClements dug deep and gifted himself a last gasp overtake attempt into the final corner. Doherty moved left to defend, McClements went for the outside. McClements would brake later but it turned out to be too late. He went sliding off the track and Doherty would go through. Peter McCann, who was sat behind the pair for the entire lap, had the better run through the corner and took not only second place but almost the outright win. Doherty had just enough straight line speed however, and took the victory.
Although eyes were mostly pointed towards the front, there were other strong results elsewhere. Gerard Thornton was selected for driver of the day after showing strong pace, Robbie Callaghan showed promising signs of becoming a future front runner, Conor Melia once again put his Formula Vee experience on display and Grace McCallion picked up her largest point total of the season.
The maximum points haul for Ronan Doherty versus the up and down evening for Dylan McClements caused a swap in the championship. Doherty leads by 12 heading into Round 6 next week at Lime Rock Park, which as always, can be viewed on Gantry TV from 9pm next Tuesday night, October 22nd.
By Evan Dalton
Photos Sean McClements
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